


Loose Ends

by VirtualCarrot (Kaoro)



Series: Greedfall tumblr ficlets [3]
Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Co-dependence, Dissociation, End-Game spoilers, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaoro/pseuds/VirtualCarrot
Summary: The events at the heart of the island may feel like the end of something for de Sardet, but she pushes through. There’s a province to administer, alliances to reassert and a body to bury before decay sets in, loose ends to tie together and threads to unravel.
Relationships: Constantin d'Orsay/De Sardet, Kurt/De Sardet (GreedFall)
Series: Greedfall tumblr ficlets [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629730
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Loose Ends

**Author's Note:**

> I had many feels; this is me tying up loose ends and processing those feels at the same time as DS does just that in the fic. Very meta and all. English isn’t my first language etc and so forth. I wish DS were gender neutral in there but for such a length of writing it was getting too difficult to avoid pronouns. DS's behavior isn't gendered though if it helps.

De Sardet doesn’t have clear memories of the moments following Constantin’s death. She remembers the blinding daylight outside, staggering away from the sanctuary and into Kurt and Siora’s arms - or were they Petrus’? - and little else. There was blood on her hands and she vaguely recalls leaving an imprint on Kurt’s cheek as she sought his eyes.

“Please, please don’t leave him in there, bring him home with us, please don’t let him be alone,” she begged, and he nodded in placating reassurance as he checked her for injuries.

She didn’t cry. Truthfully she felt estranged from herself. In the inextricable blur that made up the journey back to New Serene, Constantin’s golden crown of hair, his head bobbing with each step of his carriers, remained her only point of focus. By the time they reached the city, she had regained just enough composure to pretend she had her bearings : she had the Coin Guard doctor tend to and watch over Constantin’s body and gave Madame de Morange a short report on the last events before withdrawing into her residence. There she fell into her bed fully clothed and muddied and didn’t quite sleep.

She drifted through the night.

She doesn’t quite come back to herself, there is no startled awakening. She merely opens her eyes, swings her legs off the edge of the bed, and gets up with the awareness of responsibilities. She is barefoot on the rug and the dying embers of a fire she didn’t light glow red in the hearth. She makes use of the clean chamberpot and calls out for the maid to draw her a bath. Her voice sounds weaker than she expected to her own ears.

*

The threshold leading out of the residence feels daunting in ways it has no right to be. Beyond the doorframe and obscured by the sea fog sprawling up the streets all the way from the docks, the city appears grey and dingy. Time expands inside of her. Shadows of corruption blur her sight and the phantom weight of a dagger settles into her palm. Constantin holds a hand out to her, beckoning, trusting. She steps out of the house in the same movement it takes her to thrust the dagger into him.

New Serene is calm, the air still somewhat fresh in the mid morning, though already heavy and humid. The dirt track roads are quick to leaden the lower edge of her cape with mud. She walks past the imperious stairs of the governor building and then past the native merchant, unusually subdued on this day. She finds Kurt standing further up in the middle of the street, awaiting.

“I was coming to see you,” he says softly when she reaches him. For a brief moment, she thinks he’ll slip and call her by name. He hesitates, catches himself. “Greenblood,” he says instead, relying on habit to navigate their lack of privacy. Then he steels himself, opens his arms, and embraces her anyway.

She accepts it, sighs shakily into his shoulder. He feels warm and solid and alive in her arms. She allows herself a brief moment of comfort but pointedly does not give into it. Kurt could be her anchor into herself but Constantin was her rock. She dares not cry before the captain of the guard, fears his pity and his concern. Constantin was her equal, her other, her own. There was little more shame in breaking down before him than in doing so alone. Now, half of her is missing, and the half she’s left with is the one that needs him the most.

She straightens up and he steps back. He is kind enough not to comment on the unsteadiness of her breathing.

“How’s he?” she asks and then bites the inside of her cheek at the inanity. He is still dead and nothing will change that. Something of the absurdity of it shows up on Kurt’s face before he tamps it down.

“The body’s as safe as can be, they’ve kept him in the coolest room of the lower floors,” he assures her. His expression softens and she outpaces him quickly to avoid his words of comfort.

Quartermaster Manfred stands to attention on the other side of the room when she enters the barracks. She sees Kurt greet him with a gesture out of the corner of her eyes but ignores them, takes to the stairs as soon as possible. She feels hurried, jittery. Part of her still expects Constantin to walk up to her with a smile and an apology for worrying her, as he was wont to do.

The medical examiner grows nervous in her presence.

“He’s in the next room, your Excellency,” he says, and precedes them in order to hold the door open for her, his back bowed, his eyes averted.

She stops a few feet into the room. There’s the slight smell of old meat and dried blood and a lone fly buzzes somewhere but the place is as clean as can be expected given the circumstances. Constantin is lying on display on the table right in the middle of the room. His green-veined face has been washed and his eyes sewn shut, his clothes changed out of the Congregation ceremonial armor he had been wearing at the time of his death. She has helped him out of it more times than she can count, inebriation and distress at his father’s words making him too clumsy to undress himself after social events and too mean for the presence of any other that wasn’t her. It had taken no difficulty finding the cracks in its protection in which to stick her blade.

“Out,” she orders, and when the surprised doctor is too slow to react, she shouts. Her voice cracks on the word. “Out!”

Kurt herds the man with a few words she can’t hear, closes the door behind them and leaves her alone with her guilt. She used to believe she was at risk of burning the whole world if it meant saving Constantin. Turns out, she couldn’t. It feels like a betrayal, not only of him, but of herself.

Constantin’s hand feels cold and rigid when she reaches for it and his fingers will not curl around hers. She clutches it anyway, falls to her knees beside him, shoves her face into the unfeeling meat of his arm and begs for forgiveness in a litany of sobs.

She never knew crying could hurt until she’s so breathless her lungs ache. She lets go, sits on the ground with her back to the table and screams silently at the ceiling anyway.

“Greenblood, are you alright in there?” Kurt asks with a knock on the door.

“I’ll be right there,” she calls back in a strangled voice.

She straightens her clothes and wipes her face before she emerges. No one comments on the dirt patches on the knees of her pants.

The medical examiner winces and shifts his weight.

“Shall I, er, trim his branches, your Excellency?”

She hesitates, looks back to the prone body behind her and its wooden crown. He looks regal is his death.

“Leave them be.”

*

Entering the governor’s palace turns out to be easier than she dreaded up to the point where she’s faced with the empty throne. Constantin’s throne. A tide of sorrow swells inside of her to the point that she shudders. She pushes it back resolutely. There’s a province to administer, alliances to reassert and a body to bury before decay sets in.

She looks around, nods a discreet greeting at Petrus on the other side of the room when their eyes meet, and walks up to Madame de Morange where she finds her surrounded by other courtiers. She gives a curt bow that they return.

“Might we speak?”

“Of course my dear.”

They excuse themselves and find a modicum of privacy by the windows’ side that the other nobles leave at their approach to give them space.

“New Serene cannot be left ungoverned. Would you be willing to take up the mantle again?”

The request appears genuinely unexpected. Madame de Morange levels her with a heavy gaze, appraising, and de Sardet shakes her head at the unspoken implication. The mere idea makes her feel ill.

“I am the Legate of the Congregation, that was always my position. I have no interest in…” she pauses, draws in a deep breath. The empty throne a few paces away blazes like a brand in her mind’s eyes. Even her title feels empty now. More than the Congregation’s legate, she used to be Constantin’s. She didn’t ease the turmoil among Teer Fradee’s factions for the sake of the Merchants, she did it for him, so he could govern in peaceful times and shine, at last, so that together they could build a world away from his father’s shadow.

He wanted that too, for her, for them. He was willing to share it with her and she stabbed him in the heart.

She smothers the emotions that threaten to spill over and carries on. “I believe you’re the best candidate for the role, if only until we hear from my uncle.”

Madame de Morange nods curtly. “Very well,” she says.

They both stare out the window and at the city below where seagulls hover over the harbor like so many vultures.

“I never told you how Constantin got sick, did I?” De Sardet wonders after a moment of contemplation.

The other lady looks perplexed at the subject and does not bother hiding it. So much has happened since, it probably seems of little import in comparison to her.

“I suspected he was already sick when he boarded in Serene. Is that not it?’’

De Sardet smiles mirthlessly and shakes her head, seeking how best to unveil that mystery. Madame de Morange waits her out patiently.

“Are you familiar with Doctor Asili’s work?” is what she goes with in the end.

The other woman looks briefly puzzled again but humors her question.

“I know that he was a brilliant physician.” She pauses long enough to think through what information she has. “I also know that he was recently executed, and that you were involved in his trial, even though the Congregation’s neutrality would usually entail that we do not interfere in other sovereign cities’ affairs.” Her gaze takes an edge as she speaks but she must realize now is not the time for reproach and she amends herself. “I’m sure you had your reasons; you’ve shown yourself to be a more than talented diplomat.”

De Sardet dismisses the subject with a wave of her hand.

“Asili knew of my origins and used us as test subjects,” she resumes. “He had both Constantin and I be infected at the same time. The fortifiers we were given the day we arrived were tainted.” She turns fully to face Madame de Morange who responds in kind, probably sensing the threat of her posture without being completely aware of it. “The fortifiers you had us drink.”

She lets the accusation hang in the air for a brief moment. Madame de Morange seems too horrified by the revelation to quite react to the implicit charges, or perhaps she’s willing to overlook them out of respect for her grief. De Sardet isn’t.

“I hope never to find out you had anything to do with it,” she insists, her eyes narrowed.

Madame de Morange is nothing if not a courtly woman and the furious flash of offense that crosses her face is gone just as soon as it flares. When next she speaks, though, her voice is devoid of the warmth and benevolence she usually shows de Sardet.

“Be assured that I have nothing to fear on that front,” she says. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have duties to fulfil as a governor.”

Their farewells are stiff and strained. De Sardet is only partially surprised when Petrus falls into step with her on her way out of the throne room.

“Was that wise, my child? Do you genuinely suspect her?”

She grits her teeth and fights against the urge to curl her shoulders in like a scolded child. Her steps become heavier with tension and their sound resonates in the corridor.

“No,” she admits grudgingly, “But there’s very little I’m sure of at the moment, least of all myself.”

Little she was sure of other than the fact she’d never see Constantin again, hear his laughter, dry his tears, both find and give comfort by his side. The fact that, of the both of them, he had been the one at risk of losing her was often left unsaid between them as she left on her travels and fought hostile creatures and bandits alike. He didn’t have a tomb ready, hadn’t even begun to contemplate having one built.

The air that greets them outside of the palace is just as warm and humid as inside but she finds more room to breathe. She pauses at the top of the stairs, tilts her head up and closes her eyes as she takes the time to fill her lungs. The air smells of mud and salt.

“Thélème’s sculptors are renowned on the continent, I believe. I’d have you go to San Matheus, if you accept, and hire the best one you can find for Constantin’s effigy.”

She feels Petrus go unnaturally still by her side and turns her attention back to him.

“My child, are you sending me away?” he asks in a voice that sounds even rougher than the usual gravel.

She takes the time to think it through then shakes her head ever so slightly.

“I trust you, though I will never be entirely sure I should.” She wavers, braces herself. “I’d also like you to convey my personal gratitude and that of the Congregation to the Mother Cardinal for the help provided during the defense of the sanctuary.”

Petrus stares at her in silence, taking her in. His eyes aren’t searching or assessing. He merely looks at her, his face impassive though not forbidding, then inclines his head. He takes her hand in his and squeezes gently.

“I will be back momentarily,” he says.

“I should hope so.”

*

Days pass, life goes on. Time and space don’t change for the whims of human affairs. She used to be glad for the distance that keeps New Serene safe from Thélème’s affairs; now the other city feels too far and the mortuary in the Coin Guards’ building is starting to smell rank. She asks Aphra to draw detailed sketches of Constantin’s face for the sculptor Petrus is yet to bring back. The other woman furrows her brows at the request and her lips thin in unease but she relents reluctantly. Out of respect, de Sardet knows, perhaps even friendship, though Aphra is discreet in her affections and a tough person to read and she’s unsure where they stand on that front.

Her own feelings are too muffled by grief and guilt to care much at this point.

She watches Siora shift a log in the fireplace and sighs. The place is pleasantly warm to the point that she’s drowsy. She doesn’t really intend to speak but is too numb to filter her thoughts.

“What is that word, again?” she asks softly.

Siora startles and curses when the log lists to the side and rolls away from the flames. Crumbles of ashes and coal spill out of the hearth, past the stone lining and onto the wooden floor. She absent-mindedly pushes them back with her foot and looks up to where de Sardet sits.

“A word?”

De Sardet nods. She braces her elbows on her thighs and leans forward to stare into the flames.

“Mindanem, mundhamen… Your word for soulmate, for someone you’re bonded to.”

“Ah,” Siora says with a soft smile as she goes back to tending to the fire. “Minundhanem,” she whispers.

De Sardet repeats the word quietly then goes silent once more.

Constantin used to be self-centered to the point of callousness and yet the cruelty he sometimes showed others never spilled over onto her. It shouldn’t redeem him and yet it did, even though his affection for her wasn’t an exception to his selfishness. On the contrary, it was lodged so deep within him that caring for her was tantamount to caring for himself.

There was something exhilarating and precious about being loved so unconditionally. She did too. She does. She wonders who she can be, once she unravels the parts of her that were his, that were him.

“Constantin is… was… my minundhanem,” she admits. “In a way.”

In all the ways that count.

Siora shoots her a look of concern and compassion.

“Does Kurt know?”

De Sardet nods.

“Oh, he knows.” He has known them the longest, it can’t have escaped him.

They fall into silence again and this time it lingers. Siora sits cross-legged on the rug by her feet and together they watch the fire burn itself out into embers.

*

She has a grave dug within the palace lands’ confines. Madame de Morange pulls a face but allows it and Vasco keeps de Sardet company while she oversees it. The wind keeps blowing loose soil back onto her feet and legs but she’s too busy staring at the widening wound in the ground to care about it.

“We’ll unearth the remains once his sepulchre has been built,” she tells no one but herself then winces when some dirt whips past her face.

Vasco seems to search for words, find them inadequate and give up on speaking for a while. He shifts his weight and tilts his hat to better shield himself from the wind instead.

“I wish I could help you,” he eventually admits.

“There’s nothing to help,” she replies, her voice tight. “He’s dead.”

Vasco is only as smooth as he can be blunt and at that moment he doesn’t bother with velvet. He stares at her, his eyes too sharp, too direct.

“You are alive, and I’m damn glad for it,” he says.

She doesn’t wait much longer once the hole is dug. She informs Madame de Morange who notifies the courtiers and a few hours later find them all gathered at the chapel, surrounded by fine wood and white marble and the dust left behind by construction work suspended for the ceremony. The court clergyman looks torn between discomfort and a strange form of giddiness, probably hoping that burying the son of the Prince d’Orsay will somehow help him climb up the social ladder. Madame de Morange gracefully slides up to him to trade a few polite words. She leaves him looking properly solemn and formal albeit a bit green around the edges.

Kurt hides a wince when the casket digs into his shoulder as he lifts it up, Vasco, Siora and a Coin Guard de Sardet doesn’t know following the motion to take on some of the weight. She wishes she could be there with them, holding up Constantin one last time but her title would have made that too controversial. Siora meets her eyes then, then Vasco, then Kurt, and they all hold her gaze for a brief moment until she is struck by the sudden realization of knowing what it means to have something done not only for her but in her stead. Aphra touches her wrist to set her in motion and walks by her side as they follow behind.

The priest speaks a few more words once the casket is set beside the grave then gestures to the previous Coin Guard and three awaiting servants to lower it into the ground. The ropes look coarse in their hands as they pull them, their muscles taut with the effort. When the casket disappears into the ground de Sardet stops breathing, feels her knees start to buckle. Kurt’s hand closes around her arm, tight and hard, just long enough to bring her back to her senses before it withdraws. She holds herself straight and proud and perfectly still instead and contemplates following into the grave after the casket, waiting to be buried along his side. The thought is sweeter than it has any right to be.

Then the ropes are pulled out and loose and she does it anyway. Voices go up in alarm behind her then Madame de Morange says something she cannot hear and they quieten. The wood is beautiful and polished under her hand and beneath lies Constantin, her beautiful cousin, the little Prince d’Orsay, and with him her own self.

She leans down to lay a shaky kiss to the wood then hauls herself up and out of the grave.

There are whispers among the courtiers at the sight of her, dirtied and crumpled. Madame de Morange silences them with a glare then snaps at the too hesitant priest.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Proceed!”

*

De Sardet remains by the grave after the funeral. She’s not alone.

She looks around at her companions, Vasco, Aphra and Siora, takes in their presence. Petrus isn’t back yet but she knows he’ll be, finds herself believing in him, suddenly, in her ability to choose whom to love and whom to trust. They’re a thread of her soul untouched by the loss of Constantin, strong and bright and safe. They’re hers and hers alone.

Kurt’s face is guarded when she looks at him, awaiting judgement. As if he knows. He’s the one thread intertwined with memories of Constantin, of screaming matches in the palace garden, rough-housing scrapes and bruises, too warm bread stolen from the kitchens. He was never as close to Constantin as to her, nor as close to him as Constantin was to her, but he cared for him too, in his own way, and he saw how they cared for one another. He understands.

And yet his thread runs longer and longer still, with images of his own grief for Reiner, his hot-blooded willful revenge against Herman, his dry-humored self-deprecation, his need to keep busy whittling during lulls in their travels. He carries shadows within him but she knows them, knows of them, has met some and left unscathed. Even when his thread stops being forcefully entwined with hers it keeps running parallel, awaiting, following. Past those memories, he’s his own person, and he has chosen, just as she does at that moment.

She walks up to him, takes his hand in hers and looks at them all with something that could be peaceful given time to bloom and a swell of gratitude that surprises even herself.

“Thank you,” she says.

Kurt squeezes her hand back wordlessly and holds tight.


End file.
